Russia reportedly just sent its version of Delta Force to Syria

A
member of Russia's special police, OMON, sits on an armored
vehicle during a drill in the southern Russian city of Stavropol
on May 30, 2008Eduard
Korniyenko/Reuters

Russia has confirmed sending special forces troops to Syria
over the past few weeks to support its mission backing the
government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to a
report from the Wall Street Journal.

“The special forces were pulled out of Ukraine and sent to
Syria,“ a Russian Ministry of Defense official told the WSJ. The
anonymous official seemed to explicitly admit to a Russian
military presence in the Ukraine, something which the Kremlin
has fiercely denied.

The Russian official added that the special forces, who are
"akin to a Delta Force," the elite special forces unit in the US
military, had been operating in pro-Russian rebel held areas of
Ukraine before being called off to Syria.

The special forces group will join the Zaslon unit,
which is currently protecting diplomatic assets in
Syria. The increase in ground forces will likely help
coordinate air strikes which mainly target US-backed anti-Assad
rebels.

This is not the first indication that Russia has dispatched
ground troops to the Syria conflict. On October 5th, NBC reported
that Russia has sent
a small number of artillery units to aid in an Assad regime
ground offensive against Hama.

Institute for the Study of War

Russia has shown off its high-end military capabilities in Syria
as well. As US Navy Commander Garrett I. Campbell
wrote for the Brookings Institution, Russia's firing of
cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea 900 miles
away from their targets showed a "previously unknown capability"
for Russia's military. Campbell notes that Russian warplanes have
also maintained a ferocious bombing pace, launching as many
strikes against anti-regime rebels on some single days as the
US-led anti-ISIS coalition carries out against the jihadist
group in a typical month.

The deployment of special forces shows how serious the Kremlin is
about backing Assad — more evidence of Moscow's
deep investment in bailing out a foreign leader's faltering
and possibly doomed regime.